16Hit1600
Craft and StructureHardTwo texts on a poem's speaker

Craft and Structure practice question

Text 1 The poem's speaker is the poet herself, mourning the brother she lost in 1916. Text 2 Nothing in the poem names the dead man or the speaker, and the poet wrote it three years before her brother's death. The speaker is an invention, and reading the poem as autobiography narrows it.

Based on the texts, how would the author of Text 2 most likely respond to Text 1's claim?

  1. A. By pointing to the poem's date and its lack of names as evidence that the speaker is not the poet.Correct
  2. B. By agreeing that the poem is about the poet's brother.
  3. C. By arguing that the poem was written after 1916.
  4. D. By claiming that the poet had no brother.

Answer: A. By pointing to the poem's date and its lack of names as evidence that the speaker is not the poet.

Written before the death, and unnamed.

Why the other answers are wrong

B. By agreeing that the poem is about the poet's brother.
Text 2 rejects the reading.
C. By arguing that the poem was written after 1916.
Text 2 says it was written three years before.
D. By claiming that the poet had no brother.
Text 2 accepts the brother's death.

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